ONLY YOU...

Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, First of her name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, protector of the realm.

None of them have a choice about the matter. Regardless of whether a woman in regency England “enjoys” her societal role is beside the point, because the stakes, the risks, and the outcomes are the same for all women. Just because a girl or a woman likes that role, doesn’t mean she has the option of not doing it. If the “choice” is to comply or die, the consequences of compliance being palatable does not remove the consequences! Whether someone pushes back against it (Eloise) or accepts it (her female relatives, her best friend) is irrelevant. You’re still property. You still have no legal existence outside of your father (if you’re lucky enough to have a legitimate one!!!) and your husband. You still have no right to an education, or mobility, or agency. You only have a choice of husband on a technicality. But hey, you can enjoy being a tradwife! It’s a good thing you’re interested in embroidery and the piano! Yay!

The only other person in-universe who truly seems to understand where Eloise is coming from is Lady Danbury (and probably Lady Kate), because she knows what it means to be Othered in that society and what it means to have an abusive husband that she cannot survive without, but even so without whose money and status she would’ve been SOL in that particular environment. And even then, even she isn’t “free” because she’s beholden to a mercurial, emotionally combustible monarch. She is second in social power to only the literal queen of England and cannot even travel to her ancestral home without permission. Y’all see how this works?

Eloise knows what she wants, but no one in her life believes her because they cannot see the value in that path. They view spinsterhood as a failure. Never a choice. It cannot be desired, only assigned when it is all that is left.